There’s not a lot of green on the international futures boards this morning. The soybean complex was in the green, as was palm oil which was up AUD$8.17 / tonne in the April slot and AUD$13.14 / tonne in the May slot. Not a bad effort considering we are in the middle of the S.American soybean harvest. The strength in Chicago soybeans or palm oil did not flow through to the rapeseed / canola pits.
Both Paris rapeseed and Winnipeg canola saw another night of selling and when combined with a slightly stronger AUD, the moves may weight heavily on local bids come Monday. Cash prices for canola out of SE Saskatchewan followed futures lower shedding C$5.49 / tonne for an April lift.

Wheat wasn’t left unscathed, with both futures and cash markets falling away. Paris milling wheat handed back €2.50 / tonne in the May slot and €2.75 / tonne in the Dec slot. US HRWW and spring wheat values were lower but did find support from some pretty average weather in the US HRWW belt this week, and a 7 day forecast that doesn’t look much better. It’s getting dry in the US prime wheat states just as the crop starts to break dormancy.
The US 30 day anomaly map tells the story best (attached). A large swath of Kansas and N.Dakota are both slipping towards 40% of normal rainfall for the 30 day period. This is more of a concern for the hard red winter wheat crop than the spring wheat crop that’s yet to be sown, but worth watching.
The other dry spot is Russia, although not as dry as the HRWW belt in the USA. Central Russia and Ukraine are both seeing less than ideal conditions as Ukraine start to sow spring crops.
Europe is mixed, but generally dry apart from Spain and parts of Italy. The main durum producing regions of Europe are worth watching, mainly Turkey and the south of France, but parts of southern Italy are also seeing less than average rainfall. The biggest hurdle I see for durum this year will be the potential switching of canola acres to durum in Canada, now the price of canola there has crashed AUD$120 / tonne in two weeks.